2) Media report that Delta is transferring slots at LaGuardia to Westjet and entering into Codeshare together.

3) Depending on whom you believe, Southwest was either dragging its feet, or Westjet requested material changes to their agreement.

4) Southwest, despite its niceguy image, puts out a press release basically telling Westjet to screw off, and that they’ll find another way to serve Canada.

5) I’m not sure what that last part meant, as Westjet was the most obvious partner to serve Canada. Porter is an interesting choice, as they do serve Midway and fly into Toronto’s airport downtown. But their reach in the US is minimal. Air Canada also would be interesting, as they have done lots of innovative stuff in the past (ie, fares). However, their Star Alliance membership makes that seem unlikely.

1 Comments.

I agree, Porter flies Q400 prop planes. Great planes for short hauls. But they’re not going further than Detroit/Chicago/DC/Boston/NYC anytime soon. Porter is out, agreed.

AC is too much of a big airline, but who knows, lots of international flights might make this uber-interesting.

But for sure, the best cultural match was Westjet. They fly the same planes, they could even help each other out if a plane gets stuck, etc.

Oh well… In the end, I think some companies work great when they focus on what they’re good at and don’t jump into “we can do it all”. Goign after growth just for the sake of growth kills a lot of companies. How much growth would it be for SW anyway? 10%? Is that worth it to diverge your attention to such a small number? The office work/paperwork overhead might sqaush any profit they can make on such a codeshare. Id’ be careful. But WestJet would have a lot to win out of it. The USA is a big market to enter, I wouldn’t call it diverting their attention. They probably have eyes as big as mellons when looking south, ehehe ;-) But they too would benefit from tieing up with an internation carrier. I think they already have ties with Air France and KLM, I need to check that out to make sure.